Friday, 12 December 2008

Spot the difference

Spot the difference:

The one on the left is real. More worryingly it is written by David Cameron about our "Broken Society" that needs: "more police spending time in our communities – not arresting MPs just trying to get on with their job. And, yes, we do need tougher punishment, longer sentences and more prison places.". This is follow by some words on supporting families - which clearly welcome, but then he goes on to talk about privatising more schools and how he doesn't understand the benefits trap at all suggesting that people who turn down jobs should lose their benefits.

Most worrying is that this is from someone who grew up in the 1980's under Thatcherism. Obviously Eton shielded him completely from the realities of Thatcher's rule; as someone who also grew up in the 1980's but in the Medway towns, I wasn't shielded at all and know exactly how bad the Tories are for society.

Cameron is clearly signalling that he intends to be hard on people who turn to crime and hard on people who cannot earn enough to live.

The wide gap between rich and poor is a key factor in crime, a gap than needs to be closed through progressive taxation and redistrubitive policies, not tax cuts for rich friends and jail for the poor.

The benefits trap is something that the Tories will never get, I wonder at what point Cameron and Osbourn were forced onto the dole? We need to give everyone a Citizen's Income, an income payable whether we are in work or not. One that won't be reduced when we find a low paid job or a high paid job. One that redistributes income and doesn't leave people unable to work because they would lose income.

Cameron is right about one think, society is broken. Successive governments have seen to that. Instilling consumerism on society, ladening it with debts, screwing the climate, the money and the energy. Society is broken, but Cameron and his cronies are as much to blame for its state as Brown and Blair.